An Amazon Web Services data center in Stone Ridge, Virginia.
Photographer: Nathan Howard/BloombergAmazon’s AWS Shows Signs of Weakness as Competitors Charge Ahead
The company that invented the cloud business is widely perceived as trailing its rivals in artificial intelligence.
It’s no exaggeration to say Amazon.com Inc. invented the cloud business. Amazon Web Services took the corporate data center apart and split it into pieces, building pay-as-you go services delivered with remarkable speed and consistency. The effort brushed aside incumbents, transformed an internal startup into Amazon’s profit engine and gave executives in Seattle the power to dictate terms to much of the industry.
Now, suddenly, AWS is struggling. On Monday, Amazon’s cloud unit suffered one of the worst outages in its history, taking down its most important cluster of data centers and disrupting the operations of hundreds of companies and consumer apps. Trading platforms, digital curriculums for students, online utility payments for Seattle, Amazon’s hometown, were all disrupted. The event dragged on for about 15 hours before AWS managed to get all of its services back online.